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marble €olkdidtc Pulpit 

Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, New York City 
DAVID JAMES BURRELL, D.D.,LL.D., Minister. 

Volume 18 February Hth, J909. Number 19 

Sermon preached by the Rev. David James Burrell, D.D., LL.D., on 
Sunday, February 7th, 1909, in the Marble Collegiate Church, Fifth Avenue 
and Twenty-ninth Street, Manhattan. 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 

"He was preferred above the Presidents because an Excellent Spirit 
was in him."— Daniel 6, 3. 

It is doubtful if there ever was a more important 
forensic duel than the series of joint debates in which 
Lincoln and Douglas urged their respective claims as 
candidates for the United States Senate in 1858. 

At that time Freeport, where the most significant of 
these debates was held, was a frontier town of con- 
siderable importance ; not merely as a supply station 
for pilgrims on their way to regions beyond, but be- 
cause most of its people were of the best American 
type, stalwart, independent, enterprising men, who 
had gone West to grow up with the country, the stuff 
that good citizens are made of. 

The Fremont campaign of '56 had been vigorously 
pushed along the Northern tier of counties in Illinois ; 
and the newly organized party had made many con- 
verts. My father was one of these prisoners of hope. ' 
I well remember the interest he took in the rising 
fame of "the tall lawyer from Sangamon County." 

The name of Douglas was already one to juggle 
with. He had crossed swords on the floor of the Capi- 
tol and elsewhere with Webster, Chase, Crittenden, 
Trumbull and other intellectual athletes, and had 
proven himself a foeman worthy of their steel. 



^S'l 



2 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. '"^^ 

Mr. Lincoln was a trained speaker, though his ca- 
reer had been less brilliant. At the bar and on the 
stump he had vindicated his power as a master of 
argument and ready wit. The people had come to 
believe in his sterling integrity and patriotism. They 
called him "Honest Abe" ; and their verdict was, 
''You can trust him." 

On the morning of the appointed day the people 
came thronging into Freeport from all the surround- 
ing country. The friends of Mr. Douglas were san- 
guine as to the outcome, because their champion had 
won his laurels on many a well-fought field. The 
friends of Mr. Lincoln, also, were hopeful, but not 
without misgiving. All alike felt that great issues 
were at stake. It was a time oi omens ; the Civil War 
was drawing on apace ; there was a smell of sulphur 
in the air. 

The sound of fife and drum at length announced 
the fact that one of the processions was leaving the 
Pecatonica bridge and marching up the Main Street. 
Li front came a charcoal wagon with high flaring- 
sides, drawn by six horses. Up aloft sat "Wilse" 
Shaffer, afterward chief of General Butler's staff, a 
merchant of the town and an accomplished whip. Be- 
side him sat Mr. Lincoln, tall and thin almost to ema- 
ciation ; his six-feet-four inches emphasized by a very 
literal "stove pipe" hat. The rear seats of the wagon 
were occupied by Mr. Lincoln's advisory committee 
and other distinguished citizens. Then came a caval- 
cade of young women, dressed to represent the vari- 
ous States of the Union. This was followed by a line 
of "prairie schooners," that is, farm wagons with can- 
vas tops, but the canvas had been removed for this 
occasion and the frames trimmed with leafy boughs ; 
for this was distinctly an affair of the people. It was 
a muster of the Third Estate. 

The other procession, which followed presently, 
was of a different character. It was an array of car- 
riages, chariots of the mighty, though somewhat 
motley, in the necessitv of the case. In the van came 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 3 

a brass band, playing, ''Lo, the Conquering Hero 
Comes" ; then an open barouche in which sat Mr. 
Douglas, a trifle over five feet tall, and beside him 
Colonel James Mitchell, a gentleman of the old school, 
well known throughout the West as a stalwart ad- 
herent of the Bourbon faith. The lesser lights fol- 
lowed in more modest equipages, and the rank and 
file of partisans came trooping in their wake. 

The meeting was in an open field in the outskirts 
of the town. I remember, as if it were but yester- 
day, the excitement pent up in my young bosom as 
I stood beside my father in the jostling crowd, wait- 
ing for the opening of the debate. The two gladi- 
ators sat on opposite sides of the platform, surrounded 
by their henchmen. The contrast was so striking and 
so greatly to the disadvantage of Mr. Lincoln that 
my young heart sank within me. 

The debate was opened by Mr. Lincoln who, as 
everybody knows, was a lank, cadaverous, homely 
man ; but his face bespoke the gift of honest com- 
mon sense, and there was a most captivating twinkle 
in his eyes. He began in a low voice with his hands 
behind him. His gestures were few, though now and 
then his long index finger did valiant service. There 
was little or no ranting or sawing of the air. As he 
proceeded his thin voice rose to a higher pitch. He 
won and held the attention of his hearers. He rea- 
soned with them in plain Anglo-Saxon. He laid hold 
of current problems with a bony grip of irresistible 
logic, now and then relieving the tension with a 
parenthetic but always relevant "That reminds me." 
And occasionally he pointed a thin finger at his op- 
ponent, which seemed to worry him. As the speech 
went on the fears of the boy of thirteen vanished and 
hope mounted on exultant wings. His man was bet- 
ter than he looked ! And he was making his point ; 
which was the main matter after all. The merits of 
the argument — on which future issues, lurid with the 
flames of battle, were depending — did not gravely im- 
press this youthful hearer- it was sufficient for him 



4 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 

that his tall champion was coming off with flying- 
colors. 

His opponent rose to reply. Judge Douglas was, 
despite his inferior stature, one of the most imposing 
figures I have ever seen. His massive head with its 
leonine locks, his strong, square features and eager 
eyes flashing from beneath a broad, high forehead, 
proclaimed him a born orator. He was rightly called 
"the Little Giant." His voice, a deep, resonant basso, 
could be heard distinctly by every one in the vast 
assembly. Not a word was lost. He was one of the 
last of the old Websterian school of orators, digni- 
fied, studiously rhetorical, smooth and orotund, at times 
flamboyant, but always impressive and commanding. 
I recall little or nothing of his discourse in particular, 
but his native eloquence thrilled every fiber of me. 

Two years after that debate we watched the bul- 
letin boards in our frontier town for reports of the 
Republican convention in session in "The Wigwam" 
at Chicago. Foremost among the candidates for the 
Presidential nomination was William H. Seward. I 
recall vividly the disappointment of many, my father 
among them, when the news came that Lincoln, a 
mere country lawyer, had been preferred to a States- 
man so tried, trusty and illustrious. But the outcome 
proved the wisdom of that choice. Never in the his- 
tory of our country has there been a more manifest 
interposition of divine Providence than in the selec- 
tion of Lincoln to hold the helm of government dur- 
ing the boisterous years of our Civil War. 

On the night of election day in i860, the people of 
Freeport turned out again, en masse, to hear Mr. 
Douglas for the last time. He had been canvassing 
the country in his own behalf as a candidate for the 
Presidency. His voice was worn to tatters and he 
bore the haggard look of a defeated man. The candle 
had burned to its socket. He died in the following 
June, but not until he had given President Lincoln 
repeated assurance of his support in whatever con- 
stitutional efforts he might make to maintain the 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 5 

Union. He stood beside the President-elect at his 
inauguration and held his hat while the oath of office 
was administered to him. And Douglas made one 
great speech which helped mightily to keep Southern 
Illinois loyal to the Union. 

The fame of Lincoln grows brighter with the pass- 
ing years. The keynote of his character is in one of 
his own terse sentences, "Let us have faith that right 
makes might ; and in that faith let us, to the end, 
dare to do our duty as we understand it." 

/. Mr, Lincoln zws True to Himself. 

In his private life, it is universally conceded, he 
was an upright man. He told the truth, paid his 
honest debts, wronged none of his fellows and was 
not addicted to any of the vulgar vices. In a time 
when intemperance was common, he was openly and 
avowedly a teetotaler. To the Committee that waited 
upon him to inform him of his nomination, he said, 
^'Gentlemen, let us pledge our mutual healths in the 
healthiest beverage which God has ever given to 
man. It is the only beverage I have ever used and 
I cannot conscientiously depart from it on this occa- 
sion. It is pure Adam's ale." 

In his political life he was equally above reproach. 
I am not among those who regard politics as a 
bad business or politicians as sinners above all the 
Galileans. But there is this to be said : the great 
temptation in our political life is to emphasize party 
as against principle and to give way to considerations 
of expediency when they conflict w^th the clear de- 
mands of duty. 

But the thought of rightness was supreme in the 
mind of this man. He was fond of the phrase, "the 
right as God gives us to see the right." On one oc- 
casion a clergyman said, "I hope the Lord is on our 
side in this war"; to which he replied, "I am not 
much concerned about that; for the Lord is always 
on the side of the right ; but it is my constant anxiety 
and prayer that I and this nation should be on the 
Lord's side." 



6 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 

//. He zvas True to his Country. 
It is to be feared that in our commendable eager- 
ness to emphasize the importance of international 
peace and comity we are losing in some measure the 
old-fashioned virtue of patriotism. But .God forbid 
that we should ever, even in our devotion to the 
brotherhood of man, lose aught of our love of Coun- 
try, or grow so magnanimously catholic that we can- 
not say, 

My native country thee, 

Land of the noble free, 

Thy name I sing! 

The soul of Mr. Lincoln was harrowed by the 
thought that the Union might be rent asunder by the 
slavery question. The text of his addresses in the 
famous series of debates was, ''A house divided 
against itself cannot stand." On that proposition he 
planted himself and, despite the remonstrance of 
friends and the denunciation of foes, declined to yield 
an inch. His law-partner Herndon called this "im- 
politic" ; to which he replied, ''That makes no differ- 
ence ; it is true. And I will say it ! I would rather 
be defeated on that fact, than be victorious without 
it." When his advisory committee begged him to re- 
frain from saying it, his answer was, 'T have thought 
about this matter a good deal, gentlemen. I have 
weighed it every way ; and I am convinced that the 
truth should be spoken. If I go down because of it, 
let me go down linked to truth and die in advocacy 
of right. This nation cannot live in injustice. A 
house divided against itself cannot stand. I say it 
again and again !" 

In the course of Mr. Lincoln's address at Freeport 
he propounded to his opponent this question : ''Can 
the people of a United States Territory^ in any law- 
ful zmy, against the nnsh of any citizen, exclude slav- 
ery from its limits T' The question was asked against 
the united protest of his advisory committee, who af- 
firmed that it would force Judge Douglas from his 
equivocal stand on the slavery question and defeat the 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 7 

hopes of Mr. Lincoln for the Senatorship. It was 
destined, indeed, to do that very thing, but in doing 
so to make the cause of freedom stronger and wield 
a favorable influence on the conduct and outcome of 
the approaching Civil War. 

The answer made by Judge Douglas removed him 
from ''the middle of the road.'' He said, "It matters 
not zMch way the Supreme Court may hereafter de- 
cide as to the abstract question zi'hether slavery may 
or may not go into a Territory under the Constitu- 
tion, the people may lawfully introduce or exclude it 
as they please, since slavery cannot exist a day nor 
an hour, anyzi^here, unless it is supported by local 
police regulation/' In those words the speaker at once 
cleared his way to the Senate, and, by widening the 
schism in his party on the slavery question, rang the 
death-knell of his own long-cherished hopes for the 
Presidency. As one of his biographers has said, ''Of 
that answer Douglas instantly died. The red gleam- 
ing. Southern tomahawk flashed high and clean ; and 
he was removed out of Lincoln's way." But Mr. Lin- 
coln himself was actuated by no thought of personal 
advancement. He had marked out his patriotic course 
— the course that was right "as God gave him to see 
the right" ; and he would not swerve from it. 

///. He zi'as True to his Fellozv men. 

He was dstinctly a man of the people and was 
proud of it. His devotion to the people was shown 
in his frequent use of such phrases as these : "You 
can trust the people," "You can fool some of the 
people some of the time, and all of the people some 
of the time ; but you cannot fool all the people all 
the time." The closing words of his Gettysburg 
speech are among the classics of our Country ; "Let 
us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have 
died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall have 
a new birth of freedom ; and that government of the 
people, by the people, and for the people shall not 
perish from the earth !" 

The love of humanity was highly developed in him. 



8 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 

It is a significant fact that the man providentially 
chosen as Commander-in-chief of the Armies of the 
Civil War was one whose whole being was in a con- 
stant state of protest against the horrors of war. He 
stood on the battlefield, after Gettysburg, saying over 
and over, "O, this is awful ! awful !" His heart was 
so tender that the Secretary of War was obliged, once 
and again, to protest against his pardons and re- 
prieves. A woman who came to intercede for the par- 
don of her son, who had been sentenced to death for 
desertion, left the presence of Mr. Lincoln saying, "I 
have always been told that he was a homely man, but 
O, he is the handsomest man I ever saw." 

The happiest day in Lincoln's life was when he 
signed the Emancipation Proclamation and broke the 
fetters of four million slaves ! No wonder that, on a 
visit to Richmond, at the close of the War, the horses 
were removed from his carriage and black hands drew 
him through the streets amid shouts of ''God bless 
Massa Lincoln !" 

His was a great, kindly heart. V/hat other of the 
world's Mighties in war or statesmanship has ever 
sealed a victory with such words as these : "With mal- 
ice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in 
the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive 
to finish the work we*are in; to bind up the nation's 
wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle, and for his widow and his orphan ; to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting 
peace : 

IV. And, best of all, this man lira's True to God. 

It has been affirmed — chiefly on the authority of 
Mr. Herndon, his early associate in the practice of 
law — that Mr. Lincoln '1iad no faith," and that he 
''boldly avowed himself an infidel." 

This is conceded to be true of his earlier life ; but 
with respect to his later years it is as far as possible 
from the truth. He never united with any church, 
for reasons which seemed to him good and sufficient ; 
though had his life been spared he would have done 



THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 9 

SO. To his pastor, Dr. Gurley, of Washington, he 
said, *'I have made up my mind; at your next Com- 
munion I shall apply for admission to your Church." 
He did not live to carry out that purpose. But there 
is no lack of evidence to show — and this is the matter 
of chief importance — that he believed in every one of 
the fundamental doctrines of the religion of Christ. 

He believed in God. He affirmed, not once but 
again and again, in the discharge of his high office, 
in the conduct of the war and in the liberation of the 
slaves, that he regarded himself as "an instrument 
used of God." 

He believed in Prayer, and was himself a praying 
man. Witness his farewell address to his old friends 
and neighbors at Springfield when he was setting out 
for Washington ; "My friends, no one not in my situ- 
ation can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this part- 
ing. To this place and the kindness of these people I 
owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a cen- 
tury, and have passed from a young to an old man. 
Here my children have been born and here one is 
buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether 
I may return, with a task before me greater than that 
which rested upon Washington. Without the assist- 
ance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I 
cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. 
Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain 
with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confi- 
dently hope that all will yet be well. To His care 
commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will 
commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell." 

The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was 
on the President's mind long before he did it. He was 
praying and waiting on God. On being urged by an 
impatient friend to act without further delay, he said, 
"I hope it w^ill not be irreverent to say that, if it is 
probable that .God would reveal his will to others on 
a point so connected with my duty, it might be sup- 
posed that He would reveal it directly to me. For 
unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, 



10 THE KIGllTEOUSNhSS OF LINCOLN. 

it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence 
in this matter ; and if I can learn what it is, I will 
do it." 

In a conversation with General Sickles, with refer- 
ence to the battle of Gettysburg, he spoke thus with- 
out reserve of his communion with God : "In the pinch 
of your campaign up there, when everybody seemed 
panic stricken, I was oppressed by the gravity of af- 
fairs and went intO' my room and locked the door and 
got down on my knees, and prayed to God mightily 
for victory at 'Gettysburg. I told him that this was 
His war, and our cause was His cause. And I, then 
and there, made a solemn vow to Almighty God that 
if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would 
stand 'by Him. And He did, and I will ! And after 
that — I can't explain it — a sweet comfort crept into 
my soul that things would go all right ; and I had no 
fears about you." And, on another occasion, in speak- 
ing of the siege of Vicksburg, he said, ''I have been 
praying over Vicksburg; and I believe our Heavenly 
Father is going to give us a victory there, too." 

On the receipt of the news of the capitulation of 
Lee, the President, when he met his Cabinet, was for 
a time unable to give utterance to his feelings ; then, 
at his request, "they all dropped on their knees and 
offered in tears and silence their humble and hearty 
thanks to God." 

And, further, Mr. Lincoln was a believer in the Bible. 
The views of his earlier life were wholly reversed at 
the time when the solemn duties and obligations of his 
high office devolved upon him. The Rev. James Smith 
of Springfield, 111., says that about that time he pre- 
sented before Mr. Lincoln, at his request, the argu- 
ments in favor of the inspiration of the Book ; where- 
upon, after a long and careful review of the question, 
pra and contra, Mr. Lincoln declared to him that the 
arguments in favor of the divine authority and in- 
spiration of the Bible were unanswerable. So deep 
was his conviction upon this point that, on being in- 
vited subsequently to deliver the address at the anni- 



THE RIGHTKOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 11 

versary of the Bible Society he consented and did so. 
He was, ever after, an earnest and habitual reader and 
student of the Word of God. His chief aid was Cru- 
den's Concordance ; and his copy was a well-thumbed 
book. A year before his assassination he said in a 
letter to the Hon. Joshua Speed, "I am profitably en- 
gaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this Book 
on reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and 
you will live and die a better man." 

Nor is this all. He was a devout beh' /er in Christ. 
It has been said that he was in sympathy with the 
Unitarians in their denial of the Divinity of Christ. 
Let us see. He frequently referred to Christ as "the 
Saviour." In the darkest days of the war he wrote 
to a friend, ''I have been reading, on my knees, the 
story of Gethsemane ; where the Son of God prayed 
in vain that the cup of bitterness might pass from 
him. But," they say, ''Unitarians also speak of 
Jesus as 'the Saviour' and 'the Son of God.' " It was 
not Mr. Lincoln's habit, however, to juggle with lan- 
guage in that way. Read these words of his in a 
letter to the Hon. Newton Bateman, written in the 
campaign of i860, "I know there is a God ; and that 
He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm com- 
ing and I know His hand is in it. If He has a place 
and work for me — and I think He has — I believe I 
am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I 
know I am right, because I know that liberty is right ; 
for Christ teaches it ; and Christ is God. I have told 
them that a house divided against itself cannot stand. 
And Christ and reason say the same thing ; and they 
will find it so. My opponent doesn't care whether 
slavery is voted up or voted down ; but God cares, and 
I care. And with God's help I shall not fail ! I may 
not see the end ; but it will come, and I shall be vindi- 
cated. And these men will find that they have not 
read their Bibles aright." 

The man who was familiarly known as "Honest 
Abe" was surely too honest to utter lang"::age as one 
utters false coin. When he spoke of Christ as "the 



12 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LINCOLN. 

Saviour" and as "the Son of God" he meant it. And 
how could a denier of the Deity of Jesus make this 
statement, ''I know that liberty is right, for Christ 
teaches it; and Christ is God"? 

No man is perfect. President Lincoln was a man 
subject to like passions as other men. But taking Ms^' 
words at their face value, as the words of an honest 
man, there can remain no shadow of doubt as to ^^is 
belief in all the cardinal truths of Christianity and as 
to the fact that he considered himself a Christian 
man. 

The two great figures in our American history are 
Washington and Lincoln ; and each of these paid elo- 
quent tribute, in faith and practice, to the Bible and 
the Son of God. One of these lingers in our memory 
as he knelt at Valley Forge, in the very midnight of 
the Revolution, pleading for the triumph of our cause ; 
and the other as he knelt with his Cabinet, at the tri- 
umphant close of our Civil War, humbly, silently 
thanking God. 

Ours is a Christian country. Let us praise God for 
the two Mighties who have done so much to make 
and keep it so. 

Our Father's God, to thee, 

Author of liberty, 
To Thee we sing; 

Long may our land be bright 

With freedom's holy light; 

Protect us by Thy might, 
Great God our King! 



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Addresses and subs.^r. tions should be sent to H. P. Wareheim, 1 West 
29th Street, lifew York City. 



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